Approximately one-half of the households in the United States currently own pets, and cat owners alone comprise about 30% of all U.S. pet owners. Although cats are desirable household pets, pet care for cats is presently laborious, messy, time consuming and can be costly.
Typically, the current apparatus used for cat toiletry care comprises a basic container or pan. Cat pans normally are formed of plastic materials, but can be fabricated of metal, wood or any other materials, and are readily purchased in the marketplace. Such cat pans must have side walls low enough for the cat to easily enter and depart, yet the side walls must be high enough to contain loose, absorbent cat litter materials spread about from the cat's pawing and scratching motions.
The process of providing comfortable, sanitary toilet conditions for household cats can comprise several steps. Usually most households place a liner within the cat pan to maintain the pan's cleanliness and to contain the absorbent cat litter, and later the liner can be gathered with the absorbent cat litter from the pan and disposed of, which provides for ease of handling and disposing of the soiled absorbent cat litter after use. Liners generally are formed of a plastic material, however, many households use newspapers, scrap paper, and the like as liners. Once the cat pan and its liner are in place, granular absorbent cat litter is spread within the pan for absorbing cat urine and excrement. The amount of absorbent cat litter placed in the cat pan is currently estimated by the person filling the pan. When the absorbent cat litter has been used by the cat and the absorbent cat litter has reached its absorbent capacity, the absorbent cat litter and its liner are disposed of. After removal of the liner, the cat pan usually must be cleaned and sanitized prior to preparation and reuse of the cat pan.
Some disadvantages occur in the present method of cat toiletry and elimination of the cat's waste. One disadvantage of the present method is that the numerous steps involved in this process are time consuming and laborious. For example, the cat owner goes through the steps of purchasing a cat pan or a similar container, purchasing a pan liner, purchasing a bag of absorbent cat litter, installing the liner within or on the cat pan, filling the cat pan with the absorbent cat litter, storing the unused portion of absorbent cat litter in a dry place, disposing of the absorbent cat litter and liner after use, and cleaning up and sanitizing the cat pan prior to reuse. Therefore, this process can be inconvenient and time consuming.
Another problem in the present method of cat toiletry care concerns the use of the absorbent cat litter. Currently, absorbent cat litter is sold in heavy, cumbersome bags, usually available in incremental sizes of 10 pounds, 20 pounds or 25 pound bags. During the purchasing, handling and storing procedure of the heavy bags of absorbent cat litter, experience demonstrates that accidents are caused by lifting and carrying the heavy, awkward bags. Additionally, instructions on the bags of absorbent cat litter conventionally do not inform the user of the appropriate volume of absorbent cat litter to use in the cat pan, thereby causing the cat owner to use either an insufficient amount of absorbent cat litter or to waste cat absorbent cat litter. Moreover, particles of dust often are emitted from the large absorbent cat litter bag during the pouring of the absorbent cat litter from its bag and refilling of the pan, causing both discomfort and health risk to the cat owner and pollution of the user's environment. Thus, the present method of using absorbent cat litter can be undesirable.
Recently disclosed products have attempted to address these problems and disadvantages. One of such products is a Disposa-Box, manufactured by Pet Care Products, Inc. The Disposa-Box container comprises a corrugated cardboard box treated with chemicals to resist liquids and to prevent odors. A consumer would purchase the Disposa-Box in its closed, folded state and would open the top and erect the side walls of the box. This provides an open top cat pan. No liner is included with the Disposa-Box and the user separately purchases the absorbent cat litter and pours approximately a week's portion of absorbent cat litter from a bag into the box for the cat to use. Once the cat has utilized this absorbent cat litter for a period of time, the box and its contents are discarded in the box's erected position.
In the U.S. Design Pat. No. 310,558 of Valinsky, a rectangularly-shaped disposable cat litter pan is shown having an open top wall and a handle on one side of the pan. The handle allows a pet owner to grip the pan so as to move the pan or carry the pan more conveniently. Similar to the Disposa-Box container, no liner is included with the litter pan, and no absorbent cat litter is prefilled in the litter pan of Valinsky.
Another product currently on the market is a disposable litter kit fabricated by Koos, Inc., named LeJon. The LeJon litter kit combines a permanent plastic frame with a disposable corrugated cardboard convertible container, which is prefilled with absorbent cat litter. A consumer purchases the corrugated cardboard box pan in its collapsed state filled with absorbent cat litter and constructs the pan using pressure-sensitive tape at each of the corners of the pan to maintain rigidity of the pan in its erected position. The permanent plastic frame is then mounted over and about the pan at its upper edges. After the cat uses this pan assembly for a period of time, the permanent plastic frame detaches from the upper edges of the pan and the cardboard pan is discarded. Thus, the permanent plastic frame is reusable in subsequent pan assembly constructions with a fresh cardboard pan.
The above-mentioned products involve disposable methods and apparatus for containing and disposing of pet care needs, such as absorbent cat litter. However, a disadvantage in the Disposa-Box product is that the container is bulky and somewhat complicated to construct. Additionally, neither the Disposa-Box container nor the Valinsky litter pan include practical means for sealing or reclosing the box after use, thereby making the container bulky, rigid and difficult to dispose of. There is a hazard that soiled waste materials in the absorbent cat litter will contaminate people who are handling or are exposed to the absorbent cat litter material, because both the Disposa-Box and the Valinsky pans have no practical means for resealing or for containing the waste materials at the time of disposal.
The stiff containers include voids along with their contents, causing the containers to be larger than their contents. This is undesirable when containers are stacked upon one another because of the extra height required when stacked, and because the containers, not their contents, must bear the weight of the containers in the top of the stack. Further, products formed of relatively stiff corrugated cardboard are more difficult and slower to produce than products formed of flexible material, such as Kraft paper.
Other problems reside in the known prior art kitty litter pan products. For example, a problem in the LeJon litter pan construction is that upon use of the absorbent cat litter over a period of time, the permanent plastic frame usually must be cleaned and deodorized before reuse. This cleansing process can be undesirable because the frame construction includes ridges and valleys which might be hard to clean. Additionally, in the disposal state the cardboard pan remains rigid and awkwardly shaped, utilizing an excess amount of space in household waste receptacles or in landfills.
Therefore, a need exists for a pet toiletry system which includes a container that is strong and lightweight, prefilled with absorbent cat litter which functions as its own shipping and storage container, which can be opened to expose the absorbent cat litter to the cat, and to function as an absorbent receptacle for urine and excrement, and after use is sealable about the absorbent cat litter and excrement and is fully disposable and biologically degradable. It would also be desirable to provide a semirigid absorbent cat litter box construction which is designed for maintaining an erect and stable position during use, as well as creasing and folding to collapse around the used absorbent cat litter and the cat waste for disposal.